I also hope to see Cuba leapfrog generations of technology and eventually have a ubiquitous, modern Internet, but they need different solutions in the interim. Public-access WiFi hotspots have been the most successful interim step taken by the Cubans, but they are not easily accessed in rural areas and they are too expensive for many.

More important, Cuban policy has evolved. The opening of WiFi hotspots and navigation rooms and the home-connectivity and mobile-access trials indicate a change in attitude regardless of their limited practical impact. The government attitude toward private programmers and providers of Internet-based services has softened considerably; streetnets, while technically illegal, are tolerated and licensed and there are signs that this liberalization will accelerate when Raúl Castro steps down next year.

Decentralized, possibly privately-owned and operated, satellite links were a non-starter in 2013, but the technology has improved and the politics have begun to change. Today's geostationary satellite links should be considered as an interim means of achieving rural Internet connectivity and low-earth orbit satellites should be watched as a possible long-run solution.